Unless a speaker is really poorly designed, I don't think you should expect night and day differences because they all have their limits. Certainly enough difference to rank preferences though. From looking at the models you previously owned - Infinity, Polk and Cambridge models, the night and day or "blowing them out of the water" differences probably don't exist. It seems you have gone through a lot of different bookshelf speakers and all will have limits without a subwoofer. Picking up a quality subwoofer is probably the best thing you can do to boost performance.

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I’m armed and I’m drinking. You don’t want to listen to advice from me, amigo.

Most people on this forum won't agree with me but I think you are sacrificing sound quality when you go with a cheaper AVR. I think that upgrading the AVR to a much better quality one will make all the difference in the world.

I know this because when I bought my M22's, I went cheap and from newegg.com bought a Sony STR-DH500 for around $150-200. It was a 100 wpc 5.1 receiver. My M22's had good high end and good mid but absolutely no bass.

I changed my mind and decided to upgrade to the Pioneer Elite VSX-21THX receiver for $630. The difference was like night and day. I get much better sound quality and a lot of bass.

Jerry, if you mean that poly is partially blocking one of the tuning ports, that's the one to have some concern about, not the one where no poly is visible. The precise location of the fill within the enclosure isn't of particular significance, but if the port is partially blocked you should clear it and poke the poly back into the enclosure.

As others have said, take some time to get used to the sound. Also, as has been said, treat with sarcasm comments such as "huge", "night-and-day" or "blows away" when comparing competitive, competently-designed audio equipment. There are audible differences in good speakers, but they aren't of that magnitude.

The reason to disregard claims about better-sounding receivers is that there's no factual support for them. The design of these involves cold, hard principles of audio technology and leaves no room for subjective illusions.

Concerning the better-sounding receiver. I think that the difference I was talking about earlier was raw power. The more expensive one had a bigger, more powerful power supply, therefore able to power the speakers with much more force than the smaller one could. When it comes to any other aspect, there probably isn't much difference, except for built in functions and options.

On the reciever side, I also find Sony tends to overstate their Recievers Power ratings until you get into their top end gear. I checked a few years ago and it was funny... all their lower end recievers seemed to magically sit around the 100W/ch rating.

I've listened to at least 2 dozen cds on the M3's since I got them yesterday morning. I'm not sure If I'll keep them. They're just too bright for me. I can hear it on vocals. The vocals sound a bit too metallic sounding. Not natural. I read somewhere that Onkyo receivers were a perfect match for the M3's so I was expecting good results with my Onkyo receiver.